


I Ain't Afraid of No... Artifact?

by amtrak12



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Warehouse 13
Genre: Crossover, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 18:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7652500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amtrak12/pseuds/amtrak12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ghostbusters meets the Warehouse 13 team! or Three Times it was an artifact and One Time it was actually a ghost. Includes background Toltzmann and Erin cluelessly being really gay for Myka.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Ain't Afraid of No... Artifact?

**Author's Note:**

> What started as me musing how Myka would definitely be Erin's type has turned into me unilaterally declaring these canons to be from the same universe. I'm using official WH13 canon which means anything after S3 I will be making up myself because those fanvids masquerading as real episodes didn't happen ;)

There were at least fifteen apartment doors with a painting of a carousel hanging beside it, and that was just what Erin had counted. There were two more wings and two more floors to this building, and god knows how many more festival themed wall art portraying carousels. Why couldn't their client have been more specific with the sighting? Like maybe by giving them an apartment number?

Not that it truly mattered in this case. The alleged ghost sighting was vague and sounded more like someone's racist concerns over a 'shady' character. This building's real problem was the disgusting goop currently spilling out of their plumbing instead of water. The goop was pink and slimy and no plumber could identify where it was coming from. It didn't look like ectoplasm, and so far, there had been no evidence of a ghost manifestation, but the Ghostbusters were still on the case. There was no other explanation for the goop, and until there was, they had to assume ghost.

Erin bumped into Holtzmann in front of the next apartment. She was peeling off the freshness seal of a mini-can of Pringles. Erin didn't remember them even having any Pringles at the firehouse.

"Did you bring that with you?" Erin asked.

"Nope," Holtzmann said.

Great.

Holtzmann banged on the apartment door until someone answered. Holtz eyed the woman up and down through her goggles and then said, "We're the Ghostbusters ma'am, and we're here to check your pipes."

Erin winced. "Really, Holtzmann?" But the apartment resident either didn't catch the innuendo or had bigger things to worry about.

"Thank god someone's on it." The woman moved aside to let Erin and Holtzmann in. "So it's definitely ghost related? That's what I get for trying my hand at this rustic living trend. Should have just left that to the hipsters."

Okay, then. Erin glanced at the woman, and then took in the open and unfinished floor plan of the apartment that matched every other apartment in this building. The outside wall held tall, paned windows that disappeared into the ceiling, and was made of rough bricks aged a dark grey from decades of industry work. The other three walls were of more modern stone and concrete that were made to look more industrial. There was at least a walled off bathroom, though the rest of the space was divided only by the occasional ceiling support beam.

Holtzmann popped a chip in her mouth and made a beeline for the kitchen sink. The woman who lived here kept talking.

"It's really getting disgusting now. Three days without proper water. No one else on this block is having any problems, and yet all we get is nasty slime. It's like watered down silly-putty."

Holtzmann flipped on the faucet and sure enough the pink goop came oozing out. Holtz leaned forward to sniff. Erin winced again. Smelling the goop once had been more than enough for her. It had a gagging, heavy smell of something rotting with a hint of chocolate candy that had made it more sickening.

"Yep." Holtzmann pulled back. "More chocolate." She popped in another chip.

"You smell the chocolate too?" Erin asked. "Have you smelled it on all the faucets?"

"Sure. It's kind of fudgy."

"Does that mean ghosts?" the woman asked. She was frowning at the sink. "I can't even clean that goop out because there's no water."

Before Erin could admit she had no idea what a fudgy chocolate smell meant about the goop, a random man walked in with a smile and a casual 'hey ladies'. Erin could tell from the apartment owner's face, that she didn't know who this man was either.

"Excuse me, we're in the middle of a paranormal investigation." Erin mustered as much authority as she could. "Can we help you with something?"

The man's eyes fell on Holtzmann and lit up. "Ooo! Chips." He darted over and held out his hand. "Share?"

Holtzmann shrugged and handed over the Pringles can. "Sure. The salty beauties are leaving me too parched." She ate the final chip in her hand and walked away from the sink. The odd man crunched through three chips of his own in quick succession without so much as a word to Erin's authority.

"Hey, who are you?" she demanded.

The man finally looked up, but just then another person entered the apartment. A woman with dark, curly hair who frowned as soon she spotted the man eating chips.

"Pete!"

"What? She gave them to me."

Something in the room had shifted with the woman's appearance, like an ear-popping AP-xH shift only Erin didn't actually experience anything. But the room still felt different, Erin still felt more aware of her surroundings, and her eyes kept being drawn over to this woman even as she tried not to stare.

The woman spotted her and Holtzmann and gave them a small smile. "Sorry, hi. I'm Myka Bering and that's Pete Lattimer." She flashed a badge that Erin could only recognize as not police or FBI. "We're here investigating the pipes."

Erin gaped for a second too long. "I'm sorry, what?"

\-------------------

Once it became obvious both the Ghostbusters and these agents (Secret Service, their badge was for; they were in the Secret Service) were investigating the same case, Abby and Patty were called back and they all gathered in the apartment lobby to compare notes.

Or, well, more accurately for these Secret Service agents to tell them they had it completely wrong. The goop in the pipes was not caused by the spirit world.

They agents weren't condescending about it, but it still felt like a low blow. Erin was sorely tempted to argue the matter, but even Abby had to admit the PKE meter hadn't picked up anything spiritual energies. There simply wasn't a ghost in this apartment building.

But something was still clearly going on, and that's when the agents explained about objects with supernatural-like powers that influence people and their surroundings to create weird side effects. Like disgusting pink goop in the pipes.

"You're saying we're being haunted by objects now?" Patty said.

"Yeah kinda," Pete said while Myka tilted her head like she didn't entirely agree.

"We call them artifacts," Myka added.

Artifacts. Objects in the right place, right time to become charged by some event and take on odd powers. Erin was less disbelieving of their existence, and more wondering why they hadn't come up before. As many ghosts as they'd seen now, how could they have never encountered an artifact?

But mostly what Erin learned during the debriefing was that Myka was nearly as tall as her partner (though both were still shorter than Patty), her frame was thin and lanky though she held herself with a confidence and authority that conveyed pure power rather than intimidation, her hair was dark brown, her curls looked soft and bouncy, her eyes were an indeterminate hazel from Erin's angle -- and mostly Erin learned she, herself, was just as socially awkward around new people as she had been at thirteen. Which was disheartening because, aside from the lingering Ghost Girl trauma, Erin liked to believe she had grown as a person over the last two decades.

Yet when Myka met her eye during the explanation on what they would be looking for to find the artifact, the anxiety nearly shot her heart into her throat. Her heart continued to pound as purple medical gloves were handed out (wait, why weren't their own gloves good enough again?), and Erin fought to avoid accidental eye contact even as she still felt the pull to glance at Myka.

She felt unsettled as they split up to search the apartment building again. The vague instructions didn't help. When she'd been searching for a ghost, she had known what she was doing. She was basically the leading expert in ghosts (and wow did it feel good to be an expert in her field), but 'something old or antique or out of place'? Had these agents not seen this building? It was a long abandoned factory renovated into open lofts. Everything looked old or out of place.

Erin did her best and revisited a handful of apartments without any luck. Then, she found herself entering the same apartment as Myka Bering.

"Have any luck?" Myka asked.

God, this breathless buzzing was awful when Myka looked her way. "No, not yet," Erin managed to say. She quickly moved to a curio cabinet that definitely looked out of place against the industrial walls, and began scanning the porcelain cups contained within. She wracked her brain for an intelligent conversation starter.

"So, how will I know if I've found the artifact?" (Okay so it wasn't exactly intelligent, but Erin's teachers through the years had always encouraged her to ask questions when she didn't understand and emphasized there was no such thing as a dumb question.)

"My boss likes to say you'll just know it when you see it," Myka said.

Erin let out a huff. "Helpful."

"Well, how do you guys know when it's a ghost?"

"Oh." Erin turned away from the cabinet to explain. "We have this PKE meter that reads the psychokinetic energy, and sometimes you can smell the ionization from when a spirit manifests or feel the AP-xH shift when your ears pop." She trailed off, suddenly feeling self-conscious. Then, she shrugged and added, "Of course, usually I just get covered in ghost goo."

Myka smiled, and a special kind of thrill ran down Erin's spine. She'd made this woman smile. _She_ had -- Erin -- the person on the team with the least amount of social skills.

It was a really nice smile too. It had Erin wishing she could be this woman's friend so she could see the smile all the time. Maybe that was what had her so nervous. She hadn't really tried to make friends since high school. She'd only been networking since grad school, and she basically had stumbled into the Ghostbusters. Myka was honestly the first person she'd seen and immediately thought "yes, let's be friends". An especially difficult task to achieve when she didn't actually know the first thing about Myka.

Still grinning, Myka resumed her search of the room. "Thankfully, when we're gooed, it's from our own devices. But artifacts might spark sometimes, so be careful -- and don't touch it without the gloves."

Erin nodded and continued her own search.

The group checked every apartment on the first floor. Between Holtzmann and the agents, they were able to break into any apartment where no one was home, and of the ones where someone did answer, either the Ghostbusters uniform or the artifact agents' Secret Service badges would gain them entry.

"I thought the Secret Service protected the president," Holtzmann said.

"Actually," Patty broke in, "they were first founded to track down counterfeiters and forgers. The Civil War caused a big problem with counterfeit money cause everyone was broke. The Secret Service still catches counterfeiters today. The protecting the president bit wasn't added until 1901 after McKinley was killed."

"So when did they start investigating supernatural artifacts?" Abby asked.

"Dunno. I don't remember reading about artifacts. I don't think they do."

Which meant the Secret Service badges were a cover. Erin wondered if the Ghostbusters needed some kind of badge. They were still riding high on the city's goodwill after saving everyone from Rowan's portal, but the mayor hadn't been wrong. One day, people would lose interest and forget. Should they have badges to demonstrate they had investigative authority? She should contact the mayor's office about that. Maybe they'd grant them honorary detective badges.

\-- or firefighter badges. They did already have the firehouse.

Finally, there was a shout that drew Erin and everyone else into the hallway.

"I think I got it!" Patty said. She stood at the entrance to the stairwell, pointing at a large pipe that jutted out of the wall and wrapped up, up until it disappeared into the ceiling, presumably to run across the top of the building with some old duct work.

Holtzmann hunched her shoulders and skipped forward while speaking in a terrifying voice, "Ensnared you are now, little artifact. Time to surrender."

She ducked her head forward when she reached the artifact, and Erin had this flashing image of Holtzmann licking the pipe.

"Holtz, don't!"

"Holtzy!" Patty, who must have had similar fears, slapped Holtzmann back. "Girl, I know you like making out with machines, but can you not kiss the goop-spawning pipe?"

"No, that was Erin, remember?" Holtzmann leaned back in before anyone could stop her and took a big sniff. "Behold! I give you ode a la fudge."

"That's what I was thinking," Patty said. "Just like them faucets, but way stronger."

Myka and Pete rushed forward to investigate while Patty continued explaining.

"See, I remembered how this place used to be a slaughter house back in the 1870s."

"Ew." Abby chorused with her. Erin scrunched her nose.

"I know, but it was converted to offices and then apartments over the years. Most of the inside of this place has been replaced, but I saw this pipe rusting out of the wall and thought no way it wasn't original. Then, I got over here and boom, weird fudgy smell."

"Boom," Holtzmann said. The two of them bumped fists.

"That's not fitting in the bag," Pete said as he looked up the length of pipe.

"Do you think we can goo it?" Myka asked.

"Exnay on the oo-gay. The parking lot's like a football field away. I'm not walking all the way over there. Besides, it wouldn't be permanent. We'd just be back here in a week with the same problem."

Meanwhile, Patty was shaking her head at the rusting pipe. "That stuff's nasty. Can you believe it? How hard is it to replace a pipe? This is like Flint all over again."

"Only the water becomes thick goop instead of laced with lead," Abby said.

"Wait," Erin said. "If this used to be a slaughter house, does that mean that goop is actually animal byproduct?"

"You mean, boiled, chocolate covered animal fat?" Abby said. There was another chorus of ew's, but Holtzmann merely quirked her head to the side.

"I could work with that."

"No, you couldn't," Patty said. "They melt the bones too in that."

"No, I'd need the bones separate."

Erin tried to rid Holtzmann's comments from her head, and switched to addressing the strange agents.

"But what's in the pipe that's creating the goop? Is it a chemical changing the water or is the pipe somehow creating the goop on its own?"

"Good point," Abby pointed at her. "How sure are we it's not haunted?" She pulled out her PKE meter, but the cotton-candy twirl didn't even budge.

"Definitely not haunted," Myka answered, clearly distracted by the matter at hand. She turned to Pete. "Did you bring the neutralizer can at least?"

"Yep, sure did." Pete patted around his jacket until he pulled out an unmarked aerosol can. That seemed a bit dangerous, leaving it unmarked, but Erin had to admit the Ghostbusters weren't exactly the poster children for proper equipment safety.

"From my manly-sized pockets, madam," Pete said as he handed the can over. Myka glared at him, but didn't comment. Pete smirked and then addressed Erin and the team. "Besides do ghosts smell like fudge?"

"None that we found," Patty said.

"I guess if it was a candy ghost," Erin threw out. The idea was amusing and she was pleased she'd come up with it.

"Candy ghost." Holtzmann's eyes lit up.

"Yes, like in that Scooby-Doo movie with the ghost made-up of cotton candy," Patty said.

"We could eat a ghost." Holtzmann's eyes lit up further.

"Well, maybe not a cotton candy one, but if you find me one made up of biscuits, baby, I'll chow down on that. I don't care how ghostly it is."

"Yeah," Holtzmann grinned and the two of them slapped hands. "One day, we shall feasts on the flesh of spiritual remains."

Erin was a little surprised at how far they'd taken her joke. Even Abby was considering the subject seriously.

"No, I don't think I'd eat haunted food," she said, shaking her head. "That seems like another possession waiting to happen."

Sparks flew from the pipe causing them all to flinch back.

Holtzmann stepped forward with interest. "What's in that thing?" she asked, nodding at the aerosol can.

"Neutralizer," the man said.

"Pete, did you see that?" Myka tapped his arm.

"Yeah."

"It wasn't the whole thing."

"Yep. Which means it should be easier for us to take." Pete checked his pockets again and then tapped Myka back. "Do you have a pen?"

Myka shook her head. "Why would I have a pen with me?"

"Because you're a nerd," Pete said as if it was obvious. He caught sight of the others behind him and got excited. "Ooo, more nerds. Do any of you ladies have a pen, per chance?"

One by one, they each shook their head, but Erin felt her pocket.

"I have a marker," she said.

"Yeah, even better."

Erin happily handed over the marker. Pete took it with an oddly lyrical "hey hey hey" and began drawing lines on the wall. Erin smiled, glad to be helpful, and accidentally caught Myka's eye as she stepped back away. Nerves fluttered through her gut again and the smile gave way to mental berating as she crossed back to where the others stood in the hall. Why did she have to be so awkward? She'll never manage to befriend Myka if she couldn't calm down.

"There." Pete pulled back from the wall where he'd marked out a foot and a half section starting waist-high. "Now, we only have to get this small section back to the warehouse." He put his hands on his hips and nodded. "Does anyone have a saw?"

"Oh!" Myka said. "I know. I know."

She dug into her back pocket for something while Pete frowned.

"What, you have a saw tucked in there, but not a pen?"

Holtzmann nodded. "I could see it."

Erin smirked because yes, Holtzmann would be the type to make a compact pocket-saw to carry around, though it would probably be modified to take down ghosts. Actually... that doesn't sound too bad. A photon chainsaw, would that be possible? It seemed only fair after that haunting in a butcher shop that had almost gotten Abby beheaded.

Myka pulled out some small, unidentifiable device and held it up triumphantly. Pete obviously recognized it from the way his face lit up.

"You brought Artie's toys?"

"I brought this one." Myka smiled smugly.

"Can I--"

"No." Myka jerked the device back. "You don't know how it works."

"Artie doesn't know how it works, either."

Erin frowned as Myka raised the device even with the section of pipe in question. Myka scanned the length once and then nodded at Pete.

"Ready?"

"Yep."

Pete raised his gloved hands to the pipe. Myka adjusted something on the device and then Pete slowly pulled. Bit by bit, the affected section came away from the rest, but astoundingly the pipe in the wall remained intact. It was like Pete was sliding out a duplicate.

Erin gaped. She turned to Abby and was grateful to see her friend's expression matched her own.

"How did you do that?"

Pete raised the piece of pipe over his head like a trophy. "Let the water run clear!"

"Pete."

He lowered the pipe and Myka sprayed it over with the aerosol can again. Pete coughed and flinched.

"Hey! Not in my face. It makes you see stuff."

"You'll live," Myka said. "We have to get it to the SUV. The larger static bags are down there."

Erin pointed at the still intact pipe. "But how did you do that?"

Holtzmann sauntered over to the wall pipe and knocked at the duplicate section. It rang just as solid as the rest of the pipe.

"Damn," Patty breathed while Abby whistled.

"You molecularly replicated copper pipe." Erin walked over and touched the pipe for herself. Yep, definitely solid. She looked to where Myka was putting the device away. "With what, a camera?"

"Not exactly," Myka admitted.

"Can I took a look at that?" Holtzmann asked.  
"Classified, sorry." Myka turned to Pete. "Where are the keys?"

"In my pocket."

Myka fixed him with a look, and Pete gave an unbothered shrug. "Well, I can't reach 'em. I've got a pipe in my hands."

"Just go." Myka shooed him back down the hall.

Erin felt a flash of desperation when they started walking away. "Hey, wait! Our headquarters aren't very far from here. Do you want to stop by after this? Maybe let us give you a tour?" She ignored the eyebrow raise Abby gave her.

Pete perked up. "Yes! Ghosts, Mykes. Let's go play with ghosts."

"Oh, we're not playing," Patty said.

Holtzmann shook her head and crossed over to lean her arm against Patty's shoulder (it was a high reach for her). "We're serious professionals. Taking care of all your ghost-busting needs."

"You know that's right." Patty crossed her arms in agreement.

Yes, that was wonderful guys, a nice confidence-boosting defense, but Erin was currently more concerned with whether or not they would be seeing these new agents again tonight.

A pounding on the door behind them made them all look over their shoulders. Abby was hitting her fist against the door of the nearest apartment.

"Freddie, my friend! Open up!"

A woman came to the door.

Abby pointed inside the apartment. "Go check your water again. We think we fixed it." She stuck her inside as the woman disappeared to presumably check the water. A moment later, Abby came out and flashed a thumbs up.

"Okay, all clear. We're good."

Erin looked at Myka. "So, our offices?"

"You said it was in a refurbished fire house?"

"Yes." Erin did her best not to jump off the floor. "A few blocks west of Chinatown."

With a glance at Pete, Myka smiled and said, "Okay. We'll see you there."

"Great! Okay. Yeah, see you there, too. With us. Okay." They disappeared into the elevator, and Erin whooshed out a sigh. Shoot. She had been doing so well not sounding like a loon until then. Just great.

"Hypothesis brewing," Holtzmann muttered.

Patty looked down. "About that pipe replicator?"

"No, not that." Holtzmann was staring at Erin which was disconcerting. Then, she spun and shouted, "Yes!" much, much louder than before.

"I could build that," she said. "We shall have a working replicator in no time."

"Let me guess," Abby crossed down to the wing that would let them out at their own vehicle, "it'll replicate with a medium poof?"

Holtzmann gave this a serious consideration. "Unlikely. The chances of it are almost negative."

"I betcha you can get that down to definitely negative," Patty said. "I have faith in you."

Holtzmann quirked a smile. "Thanks, Patty. Hey nice catch on finding that artifact."

Patty grinned and thumbed at her coveralls. "Shoot, finding something old and historical's my jam, y'all."

\------------------------

They chatted freely during the drive back to the fire house, all in high spirits at solving another case (with no ectoplasm spewing!) and from running into those new agents. Patty complained about artifacts ("Why do objects gotta go and start haunting us now, too, though? Don't we have enough problems with people haunting us?") while Abby theorized on the science they'd just witnessed ("That replicator must shift the atomic frequencies as it works, okay. Those pipes shared the same point of space without destroying the integrity of either object.").

Erin engaged with Abby's theories and brainstormed her own ideas for how artifacts worked. It was a welcomed distraction from the anxious anticipation from seeing Myka again. There was absolutely zero reason for her to be nervous around the agent, so if she just shoved it from her mind, the nervousness would disappear.

She couldn't have been more wrong. When the agents arrived at the firehouse, Erin's anxiety swooped so high, she was briefly panicked, and she furtively wished she had spent the drive back planning what to say instead of discussing artifacts.

"Wow," Myka said, pausing one step inside the door. 

Pete whistled beside her. "So this is what Claudia would look like if we let her go full mad scientist."

Erin shuffled in place and folded her arms over her chest. The firehouse headquarters was impressive. The twenty foot ceilings and wide open first floor made quite the impression on their own, but when added with their ghostbusting equipment, Patty's book club corner, and Kevin's suitcase-strewn receptionist desk, the firehouse became... pleasantly chaotic.

But nothing on the main floor was Erin's. Sure, she had some calculations on the white boards down here, but Holtzmann and Abby had more and the rest of the space was taken up by Holtzmann's equipment designs, notes on recent ghost sightings, a doodle by Kevin of a pigeon he kept seeing that he swore was a ghost, and a list of non-paranormal items they still needed to buy for the office. Erin had nothing to show off to them.

Not that she really could show anything off. As a theoretical particle physicist, most of her work was intangible and only viewable in her notebooks or on her whiteboards upstairs. She had nothing physical or flashy to present. She didn't even have her and Abby's first book lying around because they'd stopped trying to sell it out of the office (they hadn't needed to; it had become a bestseller online).

Ultimately, she could do nothing except stand awkwardly with a tight smile on her face while Abby happily rushed over to the artifact agents and began showing them around. _Come on, Erin. You're a recognized ghostbuster now. People believe you. Be more confident._

"And over here is our motorized transportation," Abby said. She waved her arms over it like a gameshow presenter. "We call it the Ecto-1."

"Oh, it's a hearse," Pete said. "I get it, cause of the ghost thing."

Patty walked over. "Actually it's cause my uncle owns a funeral home. Got this baby on a two for one deal." She patted the roof of the car, and then shrugged. "Had to replace the other one I borrowed from him."

"Yeah, technically we should be calling that one Ecto-1.2," Holtzmann said. She was lounged back in a chair near Erin next to the equipment table.

"Why wouldn't it be Ecto-2.0?" Pete asked.

"It's like computer programming updates," Myka said.

"No, I got that. I remember those updates I download on my computer. But if this one's a full replacement, why isn't it called Ecto-2?"

"Cause that's Ecto-2." Abby pointed over to the small motorcycle propped up on its kickstand. "We let our receptionist keep a bike around," she explained. "He likes to pretend he's a ghostbuster too. He's pretty good on a bike! Bad in the field."

Erin supposed banging the trap he'd been carrying into a wall, busting it open and releasing the ghost they had just spent two hours chasing, could be summarized as 'bad in the field'. (Their client had not been pleased that day.)

She stepped back to the artifact agents and grinned. "Want to come see a ghost?"

"Abby!" Erin cried. She could not believe her friend would be that irresponsible, especially not when it had been Abby who'd tried so hard to talk her out of releasing that theater ghost at Dr. Heiss.

"Relax," Abby waved her off. "Not a real ghost, but we have video! It's over here on my laptop."

"Is this the footage of the Aldridge Mansion and Stonebrook Theater?" Myka asked, following Abby.

"You've seen those?" Erin said. She winced. "Was it on the news?" That would be just great. Let these agents see them called out as frauds and liars, and after a case where there hadn't actually been a ghost.

"Some of it," Myka admitted. "But we saw your original uploads as well. We've been monitoring your work for a while. The ghost sightings tripped our alerts, but they never gave us a ping that there was an artifact involved, so we stayed back."

"But you all ain't from New York," Patty said. "So where do you guys work that you care about what's going on here?"

"We travel all over the place for this job," Myka said, vaguely.

"Oh, alright then," Patty nodded, and then exchanged a look with Holtzmann.

Abby spun her laptop around on the table. "So here's the complete footage we took at the Aldridge Mansion."

"Oh, cool," Pete moved closer. "Is there like behind-the-scenes footage and stuff?"

"There's Erin's tiniest bowtie," Holtzmann pitched her voice high and stretched out the last two words.

Erin glared. "Can you leave that bowtie alone by now, please?"

"You just wore it yesterday," Holtzmann said.

"Because it's a part of the shirt." Erin threw up her hands. "And we had a meeting with our accountant. What else was I supposed to wear?"

It was a rhetorical question, but Holtzmann still wagged her eyebrows a few times in response. Erin frowned. She'll never quite understand Holtz. The woman was beyond brilliant, but sometimes she simply made no sense.

"Oh now this," Abby says, pointing to the video playing on the laptop, "is where we felt that AP-xH shift, you know? With the ears..." she gestures at her own ears and then waves her hand as a dismissal. "Well, we explained it on the tape. You can listen."

"Man, that is one scary chick," Pete said when the ghost of Gertrude came into frame. He looked over at Myka. "She's scarier than Alice, and Alice was --" he whistles -- "scary."

"Yeah, so was her mirror," Myka said in a flat voice.

Pete nodded with a slight wince, and Erin wished she knew what they were talking about because it sounded like a ghost sighting.

"So," Myka turned to address all of them. Her tone had shifted back to that hint of authority she'd used to first explain artifacts. Erin straightened to attention.

"What really happened in Times Square last month?"

"Y'all know about that too?" Patty said. Then, she added, "Yeah, of course you do. You guys with your vague job that travels a lot."

"We kicked ass," Holtzmann supplied.

"We're supposed to keep quiet about it all if we want to keep our funding." Abby glanced at the whiteboards with a frown, and Erin knew she was thinking about that second generator they needed to purchase before they could start testing containment cells.

"Look the city mayor is clearly covering up what happened," Myka said, "and the cellphone footage that's been preserved is...." (Pete made a fart noise while gesturing a thumbs down) "... shaky at best. We just want to hear the real story."

"Yeah," Pete added. "Apocalypses are normally our thing, but that stuff here in New York, we couldn't do a thing about it. It was... kind of scary. I didn't know our boss could look that green."

Pride blossomed in Erin's chest and spread throughout her veins. They'd accomplished something big that day in Time Square, bigger than what these two agents could accomplish. And while she'd known that since the portal closed, it was utterly incredible hearing it confirmed by people who had the power to do impossible things everyday (Erin still couldn't get over that pipe replicator).

Saving the city had saved the world. The Ghostbusters had saved the world, and these mysterious agents were impressed by them.

The decision already made seconds earlier, Erin squared her shoulders and began: "Well, it started when this man Rowan found an old book Abby and I had published...."


End file.
